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Talk:Stripping Dragonstone/@comment-47.32.188.170-20170401235546
Ah yes. The King that cared; except about his wife (whom he consistantly cheated on). Other people's religion (he allowed Mel to flat out kill people for heresy and sacrifice his own daughter in the show; in the book he's only moderately better on the surface, but when push comes to shove he's still a religious convert and Mels religious convictions come first most of the time, unless it outright creates anarchy within the ranks. Basically as far as I'm concerned, the only difference is that Book Stannis MIGHT see that Mel was crazy about the "lets burn people to burn snow" theory.....or he might just take objection to Shireen dying; I mean he could just burn Aemon's body since he's fairly recently deceased.) The rule of law (which does exist for nobility, both in the real life history of feudalism and in the book and show; this is why his wildly convinced attitude is bogus. Nobility have the right to a trial. Until she's convicted he needs to stand down) and just general governance ; we see Cersei governing....poorly. We see Robb Stark governing, etc. We never do see Stannis doing much of the brunt work of governing. He seems to be a fine commander, and indeed most of what we see of him is him going off to battle or else doing the long preparation for a battle. I understand this is mitigated somewhat in the books by the war councils, but overall one would be forgiven as the average Westerosi for wondering why Stannis Baratheon should be King. Being a king implies the ability to govern, or at least look like one can. Renly had moronic notions of what that implied but he at least knew how to pick the right people and generally unite the realm. Stannis could not do that. The problem with Stannis is that he lacked all of the qualities needed in a leader; the ability to take command (he gave that up to Mel and Selyse early on, and even does this to an extent in the books), the ability to be charasmatic (Renly had this more than him) and the ability to unify ones people (Again; Renly united more of the seven Kingdom's out of charisma, and Joffrey out of fear, than Stannis did through his slights of hand). It also didn't help that he never described the implications of his plans; purging the court? Okay. So everyone? Everyone down to the steward that's been working there since how long? How was that going to work? Also was Melisandre staying with him? Were they keeping the Faith? This was all never explained. He essentially ran the "not- trump" campaign. Worse. He ran the "Not-Cersei" campaign. He was a man so ill fit, despite his blood, to actually contend for the throne that the people were willing to believe that his daughter had been conceived via a union between his wife and his jester; how had that not set off any bells in his mind? That even in the illiterate world of low fantasy, mild feudal westeros, it should still be a problem if your opponents can reasonably contend that maybe your wife cheated on you with a jester with stunted growth that's either crazy or deluded based on the fact that she might possibly have the same ears.